It is nearly a year that I work as a lecturer. Throughout these years, there are few things that I learnt which had shaped me to a
BETTER lecturer (self-declared).
What I meant by saying I am a
BETTER lecturer is because I had now awared of the things below:
1. Check your pants before entering the class
It is crucial to check your pants before entering the class. You may not aware of the importance, but wait until one day when you are delivering your lecture, you see your students whispering to each other and the whole class laugh out loud!
I am sure the first thing/place that you going to check is not how many wax you applied on your hair, but to check your pants!
YUP, checking your pants means make sure your pants is zipped.
The probability of forgetting to zip your pants is 0.00001. Despite the excessively low probability of occurrence, the consequences are severe. (one of the tail-event)
- You will be scared to step in to all your future classes
- You will acquire a unnecessary habits of double/ triple/ or even quadruple check your pants before entering the class
- You will be awarded a nickname by your students, based on the color of the underwear you wore on that day
- You will be sued for sexual harassment if your student is someone who born in 90's or later but having the mindset of 50's.
and more
Well, not only you will receive the impact, your students too.
- Your students will be less concentrate in your class because half of the time they will spend on recalling the color of your underwear
- Your students will not focusing at the PowerPoint slides that you prepared so hard because part of the time they are focusing on your.........
- Your students will waste part of the capacity of their brain to store the memory of the color of your underwear when that incident happens.
and more
For the sake of yourself and your students, check your
bird pants!!
(Thanks GOD this has not happened on me before, but I just can't stop myself from thinking "what-if" this happen)
2. Visit the toilet before you start the midterm /test/quiz
(This can be ignored if you had invited your colleagues to join you to invigilate the students.)
This can't be ignored if you want to protect your bladder.
During the middle of a semester, we will need to conduct midterm/test/quiz. Here comes the nightmares .
(not to mention the nightmare of preparing and marking of the papers)
During the midterm, you cannot leave the class if you are invigilating
ALONE even you have strong confidence and believe in your students that they won't cheat. Sometimes the students cheat just because they want to
UTILIZE the opportunity.
正所谓鸡不可失,有人请你吃鸡饭,就算你已经吃饱了也要吃,就为了不要浪费那只鸡(机)。
So, if you don't want to create that
chicken opportunity, don't leave the class.
BUT, sometimes, your bladder just hit the max of it's capacity at a wrong time. Your bladder is yours but it is always stand on your students' side. It always like to release the excessive water during the time when you carry out the midterm.
SO, be the master of your own bladder, visit the toilet and command it to empty itself before the midterm start.
3. Try to remember all your students' name
Of course this is quite impossible for classes with the size greater than 50. But if you manage to do so, I can guaranteed that the class will be easier to be conducted.
Imagine this "
student-who-you-know-his-name" is talking with his friend, you just need to call his name out loud, he will feel shame/ shy then he will learn how to keep his mouth shut.
OR
another "
student-who-you-know-her-name" is not paying attention and taking out her cosmetic to do some photoshop on her face, you again just need to call her name out loud, she will quickly uninstall the photoshop.
Remembering your students' name also made them feel they are part of the class. Some students not paying attention to the class just simply the lecturer didn't even care about his/her existence.
So, this is a win-win strategy remembering the students' name.
SO, with application of the above 3 rules, you can be a better lecturer too!